GoPro Hero-4 Black overheating with Gimbal

Douggieboy · Feb 27, 2017

I bought a hero 4 black off eBay a few weeks ago-- this must be one of the reasons I was able to buy a complete 3dr solo package at BestBuy with gimbal and extra battery for $299 on a Christmas gift card. I was planning to use an extra ilook+ fpv camera, but it wouldn't fit the solo's dedicated gimbal. Worse, there are NO other cameras than the GoPro 3+ and 4 models that have the matching data ports, so it's GoPro or nothing.

Yesterday, I set everything up, updated the everchanging solo firmware, went through all the arduous calibration and binding rituals, and dry-tested the motors (no props.) I was very happy until the time came to remove the camera from the gimbal. It was so hot, I dropped it, luckily onto my shoe, so no damage.

It took several minutes to cool down enough to handle. I took the battery out, and later went through the function menus to be sure it was set up properly (it was.) The camera was only hooked up for about half the charge on one battery-- I dread to think what could have happened had I actually flown it. My guesstimate of its temperature was 140 F, or 60 C. In flight, I have no doubt it would have gone to the boiling point, frying its own electronics, and most likely those of the gimbal, too.

This leaves me with a $230 hotbox camera flying on a drone that has been plagued with problems--- looks like I got what I paid for at $299. In January, I also bought a Phantom 4 and Yuneec q500 complete setup with extra batteries and Yuneec hand held 4K stabilizer package, for about $1,400. The deals were amazing! Along with a P3 Pro, 3drx8+, and Tali H500, I now have a veritable armada of six very diverse drones.....

I test flew the q500 over the weekend, and it performed very well. About a year ago, I paid $200 for a wrecked P3 Pro, did a total rebuild, and it also flew beautifully. A nasty encounter with tiny tree branches took it down last fall; I rebuilt it again, only to discover that DJI has built an "OEM flight battery only shaft" into their latest firmware. SHAME on you, DJI. Now I've bought a Phantom 4 with 1 extra battery, but the P3 customer screw makes Yuneec's H hexacopter with the intelligent flight module much more attractive, for just a few hundred extra $$.

Fortunately, the equipment I have does afford some measure of latitude as to which camera/gimbal combination is best for each particular drone.

Kodak makes a marvelous 360 degree 4K package, but the $1 kilobuck price tag is most intimidating.......

Girlfriend coming to bed now, to be continued......
À suivre.........

Jubalr · Feb 27, 2017

The 3 options I see for the GP is to first try a different battery in case that one has an internal issue. Then change the FW. ie upgrade it to 5, see how it works then back down to 3. If the FW doesn't help, then it's off to GP for repair. We have seen instances here of GP cameras getting hot and when they send it to GP, they exchange it without ever saying what was wrong.

Also, try powering on the camera in the gimbal without turning on the Solo and see if it gets warm. Just in case it's a Solo issue, but I haven't seen that one yet.

Douggieboy · Mar 12, 2017

Hi,
I started another thread about the GoPro, but here's what I tried first--
I took the battery out of the camera, put it into the gimbal, and turned on the drone. It worked!-- meaning that there's no need for a battery to be in the camera at all; the drone powers it.
This has an advantage and a disadvantage. The good, you dispense with the weight of a GoPro battery. The bad, with the flight pack powering the camera, there's going to be a reduction in flying time, depending upon how much juice the GoPro draws.
This camera has no moving parts, and with no battery, the empty compartment can act as a heat sink, and if I leave the cover off, it will have airflow for extra heat dispersion.
Before taking to the air, I'm going to test the drone again in dry dock, (no props mounted.) If it gets hot again the problem obviously isn't
battery related.
I've made sure that all camera settings are as indicated in the owner's manual. GoPro should also provide a small microscope with their camera, so that users can read/operate tiny menus on its 1cm monochrome display.

I'll let you know how it goes.
Too cold to fly here now-- 9 F, -13 C

speatuk · Mar 27, 2017

Don't forget the GoPro is charging at the same time, this will also be creating heat.

Charge your battery out of the GoPro so it's fully charged before flying.

See if that helps.

Douggieboy · Mar 27, 2017

Hi---
Thanks for the advice-- I’ve found that with no battery in the camera at all, it gets power directly from the drone itself. There will be a tradeoff of not having to fly with the weight of the GoPro battery, but the camera is then drawing its power from the drone, so this may affect the flight duration. I haven’t taken the Solo up yet, plan to as soon as the weather warms up a bit-- this month has seen many days where the temperature didn’t get above freezing.
I’ll keep you posted on how this works, and thanks again for your help....

andrew.baker.142 · Mar 31, 2017

The little bit of power the GoPro uses will not affect flight time. Even when starting with a fully charged battery, the Solo will be replenishing the battery with whatever power the GoPro uses. Carrying the weight of the gimbal and GoPro are a much bigger power demand than the 5V needed to power the camera.

Douggieboy · Apr 4, 2017

I flew the solo with no the battery in camera, and everything went well. The GoPro did not overheat as it did when running with the battery installed. With no battery in the camera there's nothing for the drone to be charging-- it simply powers the camera for the duration of the flight.
Thanks for your help....

tinker bot · Apr 5, 2017

Douggieboy said:
I flew the solo with no the battery in camera, and everything went well. The GoPro did not overheat as it did when running with the battery installed. With no battery in the camera there's nothing for the drone to be charging-- it simply powers the camera for the duration of the flight.
Thanks for your help....

Yep I've done the same thing and it's worked good so far, the couple of times I've tried it.

Frank Foster · Apr 5, 2017

I'd re-check the balance with no battery.

tinker bot · Apr 5, 2017

Frank Foster said:
I'd re-check the balance with no battery.

Any suggestions on how to verify the balance?

Frank Foster · Apr 5, 2017

Well, the gimble with the gopro installed, is supposed to try to sit level, not one way or the other, kinda neutral, so to speak. Means less strain on the gimble motors.

tinker bot · Apr 5, 2017

Frank Foster said:
Well, the gimble with the gopro installed, is supposed to try to sit level, not one way or the other, kinda neutral, so to speak. Means less strain on the gimble motors.

Well I looked for that and there did not seem to be a problem nor did I hear the motor making the loud noise it does when it's off balance. I did hear the motors when I stuck my ear right up to it but I heard this even with the battery. I was surprised that there did not appear to be any rebalancing necessary without the battery?

I did this because my GoPro hero 4 silver was getting extremely hot. I have since decided to return that and get the Hero 4 black which has the option for higher resolutions. I am also hoping that the issue with getting really hot is an issue with particular manufacturing batches and models, hoping that my next one does not get as hot with the battery installed.

Douggieboy · Apr 6, 2017

Battery or no battery, the gimbal with GoPro attached is close enough to the drone's center of gravity, the few grams that its battery might weigh can have little to no effect upon its flight characteristics.
The alternative is to include a small camera battery that heats up to 140f/60c before you even get off the ground.This energy has nowhere to go, other than into the camera and gimbal. It burned my fingers the first time I took it all apart. I dread what might likely fall out of the sky during a 20+ minute adventure..

I was very happy flying with no battery, nothing overheating, and being able to return home safely....

andrew.baker.142 · Apr 6, 2017

...balance the gimbal with no GoPro battery, not the Solo. Either way probably not a big issue.

Dmitry · Apr 8, 2017

Douggieboy said:
Battery or no battery, the gimbal with GoPro attached is close enough to the drone's center of gravity, the few grams that its battery might weigh can have little to no effect upon its flight characteristics.
The alternative is to include a small camera battery that heats up to 140f/60c before you even get off the ground.This energy has nowhere to go, other than into the camera and gimbal. It burned my fingers the first time I took it all apart. I dread what might likely fall out of the sky during a 20+ minute adventure..

I was very happy flying with no battery, nothing overheating, and being able to return home safely....

What version of firmware on gopro?

tinker bot · Apr 14, 2017

So I currently have a GoPro 4 silver and Black. The silver works fine and I use 1080p 60 frames per second, no issues. The black works fine when set to to 1080p 60 frames per second. But if I set the black to what 3DR suggest which is 2.7 k at 60 frames per second it does all sorts of strange things: fpv video Cuts in/out, recording playback on computer using VLC player (which plays 1080p 60 frames per second just fine ) plays video all choppy and jittery, and finally the live video is just generally messed up with the GoPro stopping recording and/or freezing a lot. I'm not sure if this is a bad GoPro or if 2.7 k at 60 frames per second is just too much for the solo and/or my computer?